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CALVERT AND PENN; 



UK THF. <.KU\V TH OF 



CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS LIBERTY 



IN AMERICA, 



AS DISCLOSED IN THE PLANTING OF 



MARYLAND AND PENNSYLVANIA; 




A DISCOURSE BY 



BRANTZ MAYER. 



DEI.IVEUEn IN PHILADELPHIA BEFORE THK 



PENNSYLVANLV HISTORICAL SOCIETY, 



8 APRIL, 18 52. 



f 



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"Se mai turba il Ciel Sereno 
"Fosco vel di nebbia impura, 
" Quando il sol gli sguarcia il seno, 
" Piu sereno il ciel si fa. 

" Rea, discordia, invidia irata 
"Fuga il tempo, e nuda splende,. 
"Vincitrice e vendicata. 
"L'offuscata Verita." 



1 a I N T E L Foii r n 3' 



\'^ PENNSYLVANIA IIISTOFvICAL SOCIETY. 

BY JOHN D. TOY. 



fl A L T I M O K E 



4 



CALVERT AND PENN. 



J.T is a venerable and beautiful rite which commands the 
Chinese not only to establish in their dwellings a Hall of 
Ancestors, devoted to memorials of kindred who are dead, but 
which obliges them, on a certain day of every year, to quit 
the ordinary toils of life and hasten to the tombs of their Fore- 
fathers, where, with mingled services of festivity and wor- 
ship, they pass the hours in honoring the manes of those 
whom they have either loved or been taught to respect for 
their virtues. 

This is a wholesome and ennobling exercise of the memory. 
It teaches neither a blind allegiance to the past, nor a super- 
stitious reverence for individuals ; but it is a recognition of 
the great truth that no man is a mere isolated being in the 
great chain of humanity, and that, while we are not selfishly 
independent of the past, so also, by equal affinity, we are con- 
nected with and control the fate of those who are to succeed 
us in the drama of the world. 

The Time that merges in Eternity, sinks like a drop in the 
ocean, but the deeds of that Time, like the drop in the deep, 
are again exhaled and fitted for new uses ; so that although 
the Time be dead, the acts thereof are immortal — for the 
achieved action never perishes. That which was wrought, in 
innocence or wrong, is eternal in its results or influences. 
2 



This reflection inculcates a profound lesson of our respon- 
sibility. It teaches us the value of assembling to look over 
the account of the past; to separate the good from the false ; 
to winnow the historical harvest we may have reaped; to 
survey the heavens, and find our place on the ocean after the 
storm. And if such conduct is correct in the general con- 
cerns of private life, how much more is it proper when we 
remember the duty we owe to the founders of great princi- 
ples, — to the founders of great states, — of great states that 
have grown into great nations ! In this aspect the principle 
rises to a dignity worthy our profoundest respect. History is 
the garnered treasure of the past, and it is from the glory or 
shame of that past, that nations, like individuals, take heart 
for the coming strife, or sink under irresistible discouragement. 

Is it not well, then, that we, the people of this large country, 
divided as we are in separate governments, should assemble, 
at proper seasons, to celebrate the foundations of our time- 
honored commonwealths; and, while each state casts its an- 
nual tribute on the altar of our country, each should brighten 
its distinctive symbols, before it merges their glory in that 
great constellation of American nations, which, in the political 
night that shrouds the world, is the only guiding sign for 
unfortunate but hopeful humanity ! 



When the Reformation in England destroyed the supre- 
macy of the Roman Church, and the Court set the example 
of a new faith, it may reatlily be supposed, that the people 
were sorely taxed when called on to select between the dogmas 
they had always cherished, and those they were authorita- 
tively summoned to adopt. The age was not one cither of 
free discussion or of printing and publication. Oral argu- 
ments, and not printed appeals, were the only means of reach- 
ing the uncultivated minds of the masses, and even of a large 
portion of the illiterate gentry and aristocracy. If we reflect, 
with what reverence creeds are, even now, traditionally 
inherited in families, we must be patient with their entailed 
tenure in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The soul of 



nations cannot be purged of its ancestral faith by Acts of Par- 
liament. There may be submission to law, external indiffer- 
ence, hypocritical compliance , but, that implicit adoption 
and correspondent honest action, which flow from conscien- 
tious belief, must spring from sources of very different 
sanctity. 

When the world contained only one great Christian Church, 
the idea of Union betwixt that Church and the State, was not 
frauofhtwith the diso^usts or dano-ers that now characterize it. 
There were then no sects. All were agreed on one faith, one 
ritual, one interpretation of God's law, and one infallible 
expositor ; nor was it, perhaps, improper that this law — thus 
ecclesiastically expounded and administered in perfect national 
unity of faith — should be the rule of civil and political, as well 
as of religious life. Indeed, it is difficult, even now, to 
separate the ideas; for, inasmuch as God's law is a law of life, 
and not a mere law of death — inasmuch as it controls all our 
relations among ourselves and thus defines our practical duty 
to the Almighty — it is difficult, I repeat, to define wherein 
the law of man should properly differ from the law of God. 
Mere morality — mere political morality, — is nothing but a 
bastard policy, or another name for expediency, unless it 
conforms in all its motives, means and results, to religion. 
In truth, morality, social as well as political, to be vital and 
not hypocritical, must be religion put into practical exercise. 
This is the simple, just, and wise reconciliation of religion and 
good government, which I humbly believe to be, ever and 
only, founded upon Christianity. But it was a sad mistake 
in other days, to confound a Primitive Christianity and the 
dogmas of a Historical Church. Unfortunately for the ancient 
union of Church and State, this great identification of the true 
christian action of the civil and ecclesiastical bodies, was 
but a mere fiction, so far as religion was concerned, and 
a fact, only so far as power was interested. Christianity 
ever has remained, and ever will remain, the same radiant 
unit ; but a church, with irresponsible power — a church 
which, at best, is but an aggregation of human beings, 
with all the passions, as well as all the virtues of our race — 



6 

soon, necessarily, abandons the purity of its early time, and 
grows into a vast hierarchy, which, founding its claims to 
authority on divine institution, sways the world, sometimes 
for good and sometimes for evil, with a power suited to the 
asserted omnipotence of its origin. 

But the idea of honest union between church and state was 
naturally destroyed, in the minds of all right thinking persons, 
from the moment that there was a secession from the Church 
of Rome. The very idea, I assert, was destroyed ; for the 
Catholic Princes and the sects into which Protestants divided 
themselves, began an internecine war, which, in effect, not 
only forever obliterated supremacy from the vocabulary of 
ecclesiastical power, but almost destroyed, by disgracing, the 
religion in whose name it perpetrated its remorseless cruelties. 

The social as well as religious anarchy consequent upon 
the Reformation, was soon discerned by the statesmen of 
England, who took council with prudent ecclesiastics, and, 
under the authority of law, erected the Church of England. 
In this new establishment they endeavored to substitute for 
Romanism, a new ecclesiastical system, which, by its con- 
cessions to the ancient faith, its adoption of novel liberalities, 
its compromises and its purity, might contain within itself, 
sufficient elements upon which the adherents of Rome might 
gracefully retreat, and to which the Reformers might either 
advance or become reconciled. This scheme of legislative 
compromise for a national religion, was doubtless, not merely 
designed as an amiable neutral ground for the spiritual wants 
of the people, but as the nucleus of an institution which would 
gradually, if not at once, transfer to the Royalty of England, 
that spiritual authority which its sovereigns had found it irk- 
some to bear or to control when wielded by the Pope. 

The architects of this modern faith were not wrong in their 
estimate of the English people, for, perhaps, the great body 
of the nation willingly ad()[)ted the new scheme. Yet there 
were bitter opponents both among the Catholics and Cal- 
vinists, whose extreme violence admitted no compromise, 
either with each other, or with the Church of England. For 
them there was no resource but in dumbness or rebellion ; and, 



as many a lip opened in complaint or attempted seduction, 
the legislature originated that charitable and reconciling 
system of disabilities and penalties, which a pliant judiciary 
was not slow in enforcing with suitable rigor. While the 
Puritan could often fairly yield a sort of abstinent conformity 
which saved him from penalties, the Roman Catholic, who 
adhered faithfully and conscientiously to his ancestral church, 
made no compromise with his allegiance. Accordingly, on 
him, the unholy and intolerant law fell with all its persecuting 
bane. 

" About the middle of the reign of Queen Elizabeth there 
arose among the Calvinists, a small body, who bore nearly 
the same relation to them, which they bore to the great body 
of the Reformed ; these were ultra Puritans, as they were 
ultra Protestants. These persons deemed it their religious 
duty to separate themselves entirely from the church, and, in 
fact, to war against it. The principle upon which they 
founded themselves, was, that there should be no national 
church at all, but that the whole nation should be cast in a 
multitude of small churches or congregations, each self- 
governed, and having only, as they believed, the officers of 
which we read in the New Testament, — pastor, teacher, elder 
and deacon."! 

Such was the ecclesiastical and political aspect of England, 
and of a part of Scotland, about the period when the First 
.James ascended the British throne. As there is nothing 
that so deeply concerns our welfare as the rights and duties 
of our soul, it is not at all singular to find how quickly 
men became zealous in the assertion of their novel privi- 
leges, as soon as they discovered that there were two ways 
of interpreting God's law, or, at least, two modes of worship- 
ing him, — one wrapped in gorgeous ceremonial, the other 
stripped in naked simplicity, — and that the right to this 
interpretation or worship was not only secured by law, 

' Mr. Joseph Hunter's " Collections concerning the Early History of the 
Founders of New Plymouth." London, 1849 : No 2 of his Critical and His- 
torical Tracts, p. 14. 



8 

but was inherent in man's nature. Personal interests may 
be indolently neglected or carelessly pursued. It is rare to 
see men persecute each other about indivichiai rights or pro- 
perties. Yet, such is not the case when a right or an interest 
is the religious property of a multitude. Then, community of 
sentiment or of risk, bands them together in fervent support, 
and when tlie tiling contended for is based on conscience and 
eternal interest, instead of personal or temporary welfare, we 
behold its pursuit inflame gradually from a principle into a 
passion, — from passion into persecution, until at length, what 
once glimmered in holy zeal, blazes in bigoted fanaticism. 
Thus, all persecutors may not, originally, be ])ad men, though 
their practices are wicked. The very liberty of conscience 
which freemen demand, must admit this to be possible in the 
conduct of those who differ from us most widely in faith 
and politics. 

Religious Conscience, therefore, is the firmest founder of 
the right of forming and asserting Free Opinions ; and when 
it has securely established the great fact of Religious Freedom, 
it at once, as an immediate consequence, realizes Political 
Freedom, which is nothing but the individual right indepen- 
dently to control our personal destinies, as well as to shape 
our conscientious spiritual destinies. The right of free judg- 
ment asserts that Christianity put into vital exercise, in our 
social or national relations, is, in fact, the essence of pure 
democracy. It is liberty of action that produces responsi- 
bility — it is equal responsibility that makes us one before the 
law. To teach man the humility and equality of his race, as 
rights; and to illustrate the glorious lesson that from the 
cottage and cabin have sprung the intellects that filled the 
world with light, it pleased the Almighty to make a stable 
the birth-place of our Redeemer, and a manger his lowly 
cradle ! 

When the valiant men of olden times had checked the cor- 
porate system of theology in England and Germany, and estab- 
lished their right, at least, to think for themselves ; and when 
the Reformation liad subsecpieiitly received a countercheck in 



9 

Germany, England and France, — the stalwart, independent 
worshippers, who could no longer live peacefully together 
within their native realms, began to cast about for an escape 
from the persecutions of non-conformity and the mean 
*' tyranny of incapacitation." 

The Reformation was the work of the early part of the 
sixteenth century. The close of the fifteenth had been sig- 
nalized by the discovery of America, and by the opening of 
a maritime communication with India. The East, though 
now accessible by water, was still a far distant land. The 
efforts of all navigators, even when blundering on our con- 
tinent, were, in truth, not to find a new world, but to reach 
one already well known for the richness of its products, and 
the civilization of its people. But distant as it was, it pre- 
sented no field for colonization. It was the temporary object 
of mercantile and maritime enterprise, and although colonial 
lodgments were impracticable on its far off shores, it never- 
theless permitted the establishment of factories which served, 
in the unfrequent commerce of those ages, as almost regal 
intermediaries between Europe and Asia. 

But the Western World was both nearer, and, for a while, 
more alluring to avarice and enterprise. It was not a civilized, 
populous, and warlike country like the East, but it possessed 
the double temptation of wealth and weakness. The fertility 
of the West Indies, the reports of prodigious riches, the con- 
quests of Coi'tez and Pizzaro, the emasculated semi-civiliza- 
tion of the two Empires, which, with a few cities and royal 
courts, combined the anomaly of an almost barbarous though 
tamely tributary people — had all been announced throughout 
Europe. Yet, the bold, brave and successful Spaniard of those 
days contrived for a long while to reap the sole benefit of the 
discovery. What he effected was done by conquest. Colo- 
nization^ which is a gradual settlement, either under enter- 
prise or persecution, was to follow. 

The conquest and settlement of the Southern part of this 
continent are so well known, that it is needless for me to dwell 
on them ; but it is not a little singular that the very first effort 
at what may strictly be called colonization, within the present 



10 

acknowledged limits of the United States, was owing to the 
spirit of persecution which was so rife in Europe. 

The Bull of the Pope, in its division of the world, had 
assigned America to Spain. Florida, which had been dis- 
covered by Ponce de Leon, and the present coast of our 
Republic on the Gulf of Mexico, were not, in the sixteenth 
century, disputed with Spain by any other nation. Spain 
claimed, however, under the name of Florida, the whole sea- 
coast as far as Newfoundland and even to the remotest 
north, so that, so far as asserted ownership was involved, the 
whole of our coast was Spanish domain. 

The poor, persecuted, weather-beaten Huguenots of France, 
had been active in plans of Colonization for escape from the 
mingled imbecility and terrorism of Charles IX. They saw 
that it was not well to stay in the land of their birth. 
The Admiral de Coligny, one of the ablest leaders of the 
French Protestants, was zealous in his efforts to found a 
Gallic empire of his fellow subjects and sufferers on this con- 
tinent. He desired, at least, a refuge for them ; and in 1562, 
entrusted to John Ribault, of Dieppe, the command of an 
expedition to the American shores. The first soil of this 
virgin hemisphere that was baptised by the tread of refugees 
flying from the terrors of the future hero of St. Bartholomew — 
of men who were seeking freedom from persecution for the 
sake of their religion — was that of South Carolina. Ribault 
first visited St. John's River, in Florida, and then slowly 
coasted the low shores northward, until he struck the in- 
denture where Hilton-Head Island, and Hunting and St. 
Helen's Islands are divided by the entrance into the ocean of 
Broad River at Port Royal. 

It was a beautiful region, where venerable oaks shadowed 
a luxuriant soil, while the mild air, delicious with the fragrance 
of forest-flowers, forever diffused a balmy temperature, free 
alike from the fire of the tropics and the frost of the north. 
Here, in this pleasant region, he built Fort Carolina, and 
landed his humble colony of twenty persons who were to keep 
possession of the chosen land. 



II 

But Frenchmen are not precisely at home in the wilderness. 
They require the aggregation of large villages or cities. The 
Frenchman is a social being, and regret for the loss of civil 
comforts soon spoils his vivacious temper, and fills him with 
discontent. Accordingly, dissensions broke forth in the 
colony soon after the departure of Ribault for France ; and, 
most of the dissatisfied colonists, finding their way back to 
Europe as best they could, the settlement was broken up 
forever. 

Yet, Coligny was not to be thwarted. In 1564, he again 
resolved to colonize Florida, and entrusted Laudonniere — a 
seaman rather than a soldier, w^ho had already visited the 
American coasts, — with three ships which had been conceded 
by the king. An abundance of colonists, not disheartened by 
the failure of their predecessors, soon offered for the voyage, 
and, after a passage of sixty days, the eager adventurers 
hailed the American coast. They did not go to the old site, 
marked as it was by disaster, but nestled on the embowered 
banks of the beautiful St. John's, or, as it was then known — ■ 
*' The River of May." 

But the French of that era, when in pursuit of qualified self- 
government or of any principle, either civil or religious, were 
not unlike their countrymen of the present time. They found 
it difficult to make enthusiasm subordinate to the mechanism 
of progress, and to restrain the elastic vapor which properly 
directed gives energy to humanity, but which heedlessly 
handled destroys what it should impel or guide. Religious 
enthusiasm is not miraculously fed by ravens in the wilderness. 
Coligny's emigrants were improvident or careless settlers. 
Their supplies w^asted. They were not only gratified by the 
sudden relief from royal oppression, but the removal of a 
weight, gave room for the display of that secret avarice, which, 
more or less, possesses the hearts of all men. They had heard 
of the Spaniard's success, and were seized with a passion for 
sudden wealth. They became discontented with the toil of 
patient labor and slow accretion. Mutiny ripened into rebel- 
lion. A party compelled Laudonniere to suffer it to embark 
for Mexico ; but its two vessels were soon employed in 
3 



12 

piratical enterprises against the Spaniards. Some of the 
reckless insurgents fell into the hands of the men they assailed, 
and were made prisoners and sold as slaves, while the few 
who escaped, were, on their return, executed by orders of 
Laudonniere. 

The main body of the colonists who had either remained 
true to their duty or were kept in subjection, had, meanwhile, 
become greatly disheartened by these occurrences and by the 
failing supplies of their settlement, when they were tempo- 
rarily relieved by the arrival of the celebrated English adven- 
turer — Sir John Hawkins. Ribault soon after came out 
from France to take command, and brought with him new 
emigrants, seeds, animals, agricultural implements, and fresh 
supplies of every kind. 

These occurrences, it will be recollected, took place in 
Florida, within the ancient claim of Spain. It is true that 
the country was a wilderness ; but Spain still asserted her 
dominion, though no beneficial use had been made of the 
neglected forest and tangled swamp. At this epoch, a certain 
Pedro Melendez de Aviles — a coarse, bold, bloody man, who 
signalized himself in the wars in Holland against the Pro- 
testants, and was renowned in Spanish America for deeds 
which, even in the loose law of that realm, had brought him 
to justice, was then hanging about the Court of Phihp H. in 
search of plunder or employment. He perceived a tempting 
" mission" of combined destruction and colonization in the 
French Protestant settlement in Florida; and, accordingly, a 
compact was speedily made between himself and his sove- 
reign, by which he was empowered, in consideration of cer- 
tain concessions and rights, to invade Florida with at least 
five hundred men, and to establish llie Spanish authority and 
Catholic religion. 

An expedition, numbering under its banner more than 
twenty-five hundred persons, was soon prepared. After 
touching, with part of these forces, on the Florida coast, in 
the neighborhood of the present river Matanzas, the adven- 
turer sailed in quest of the luckless Huguenots, whose vessels 
were soon descried escaping seaward from a combat for which 



13 

they were unprepared. For a while, Melendez pursued them, 
but abandoning the chase, steered south once more, and enter- 
ing the harbor on the coast he had just before visited, laid the 
foundations of that quaint old Spanish town of St. Augustine, 
which is the parent of civic civilization on our continent. 
Ribault, meanwhile, who had put to sea with his craft, lost 
most of his vessels in a sudden storm on the coast, though the 
greater part of his companions escaped. 

But Melendez, whose ships suffered slightly from this 
tempest, had no sooner placed his colonists in security, at 
St. Augustine, than he set forth with a resolute band across 
the marshy levels which intervened between his post and the 
St. John's. With savage fury the reckless Spaniard fell on 
the Huguenots. The carnage was dreadful. It seems to 
have been rather slaughter than warfare. The Huguenots, 
unprepared for battle, little dreamed that the wars of the old 
world would be transferred to the new, and vainly imagined 
that human passion could find victims enough for its malig- 
nity without crossing the dangerous seas. Full two hundred 
fell. Many fled to the forest. A few surrendered, and were 
slain. Some escaped in two French vessels that fortunately 
still lingered in the harbor. The wretches who had been pro- 
videntially saved from the wreck, were next followed and found 
by this Castilian monster. " Let them surrender their flags 
and arms," said he, "and thus placing themselves at my 
discretion, I may do with them what God in his mercy 
desires!" Yet, as soon as they yielded, they were bound and 
marched through the forest to St. Augustine, and, as they 
approached the fort which had been hastily raised on the level 
shores, the sudden blast of a trumpet was the signal for the 
musketeers to pour into the crowd a volley that laid them 
dead on the spot. It was asserted that these victims of reli- 
ance on Spanish mercy, were massacred, " not as French- 
men, but as Lutherans;" — and thus, about nine hundred Pro- 
testant human beings, were the first offering on the soil of our 
present Union to the devilish fanaticism of the age. 

But the bloody deed was not to go unrevenged. A bold 
Gascon, Dominic de Gourgues, in 1567, equipped three ships 



14 

and set sail for Florida. He swooped down suddenly, like a 
falcon on the forts at tlie mouth of the St. John's, and putting 
the occupants to the sword, hanged tlicm in tlie forest, inscrib- 
ing over their dangling corpses, this mocking reply to the 
taunt at the Lutherans : " I do this not as unto Spaniards and 
sailors, but as unto murderers, robbers and traitors!" 

The revenge was merciless ; and thus terminated the first 
chapter in the history of religious liberty in America. Blood 
stained the earliest meeting between Catholic and Protestant 
on the present soil of our Union ! 

The poW'Cr of Spain, the unattractiveness of our coast, the 
indifferent climate, and the failure to find w^ealthy native 
nations to plunder, kept the northern part of our continent in 
the back ground for the greater part of a century after the 
voyages of Columbus and Cabot. There were discourage- 
ments at that time for mercantile or maritime enterprise, 
which make us marvel the more at the energy of the men 
who with such slender vessels and knowledge of navigation, 
tempted the dangers of unknown seas. 

Emigration from land to land, from neighboring country 
to neighboring country, was, at that epoch, a formidable 
enterprise ; what then must we think of the hardihood, or 
compulsion, which could either tempt or drive men, not only 
over conterminous boundaries, but across distant seas ? 
Feudal loyalty and the strong tie of family, bound them not 
only to their local homes, but to their native land. The lusty 
sons of labor were required to till the soil, while their stalwart 
brethren, clad in steel, were wandering on murderous errands, 
over half of -Europe, fighting for Protestantism or Catholicity. 
Adventure, then, in the shape of colonization, must hardly 
be thought of, from the inland states of the old world ; and, 
even from the maritime nations, with the exception of Spain 
and Portugal, we find nothing worthy of record, save the 
fisheries on the Banks, the small settlements of the French 
in Acadia and along the St, Lawrence, and the holy efforts of 
Catholic Missionaries among the Northern Lidians. If we 



15 

did not know their zeal to have been Christian, it might 
almost be considered romantic. 

Soon after the return of De Gourc^ues from his revcneceful 
exploit, the report of the daring deed and its provocation, 
was spread over Europe, and excited the people's atten- 
tion to America more eagerly than ever. Among those who 
were attracted to the subject, was a British gentleman, whose 
character and misfortunes have always engaged my sincere 
admiration. 

Sir Walter Raleigh was the natural offspring of the remark- 
able age in which he lived. We owe him our profoundest 
respect, for it was Sir Walter who gave the first decided 
impulse to our race's beneficial enjoyment of this continent. 
It was his fortune to live at a time of great and various action. 
The world was convulsed with the throes of a new civilization, 
and the energy it exhibited was consequent upon its long 
repose. It was an age of transition. It was an age of coat 
and corselet — of steel and satin — of rudeness and refine- 
ment, — in which the antique soldier was melting into the 
modern citizen. It was the twilight of feudalism. Baro- 
nial strongholds were yielding to municipal independence. 
Learning began to teach its marvels to the masses ; warfare 
still called chivalrous men to the field ; a spirited queen, 
surrounded by gallant cavaliers, sat on a dazzling throne ; 
adventurous commerce armed splendid navies and nursed a 
brood of hardy sailors; while the mysterious New World 
invited enterprise to invade its romantic and golden depths. 
It was peculiarly an age of thought and action ; and is 
characterized by a vitality which is apparent to all who 
recollect its heroes, statesmen, philosophers and poets. 

Sir Walter Raleigh was destined, by his deeds and his 
doom, to bring this northern continent, which we are now 
enjoying, into prominent notice. He was the embodiment 
of the boyhood of our new world. In early life he had 
been a soldier, but the drilt of his genius led him into 
statesmanship. He was a well known favorite of the Virgin 
Queen. A spirit of adventure bore him across the Atlantic, 
where, if the occasion had offered, he would have rivalled 



16 

Cortez in his courageous hardihood, and outstripped him in 
his lukewarm humanity. He became a courtier; and, min- 
gling in the intrigues of the palace, according to the morals of 
the age, was soon too great a favorite with his sovereign to 
escape the dislike of men who beheld his sudden rise with 
envy. From the palace he passed to prison ; and, scorning 
the idleness which would have rusted so active an intellect, he 
prepared that remarkable History of the World, wherein he 
concentrated a mass of rare learning, curious investigation, and 
subtle thought, which demonstrate the comprehensive and 
yet minute character of his wonderful mind. A volume of 
poems shows how sweetly he could sing. The story of his 
battles, discloses how bravely he could fight. The narrative 
of his voyages proves the boldness of his seamanship. The 
calmness of his prison life teaches us the manly lesson of 
endurance. The devotion of his \Vife, denotes how deeply he 
could love ; while his letters to that cherished woman — those 
domestic records in which the heart divulges its dearest 
secrets — teem with proofs of his affection and Christianity. 
Indeed, the gallantry of his courtiership ; the foresight of his 
statecraft: the splendid dandyism of his apparel; the wild 
freedom and companionship of his forest life, show how com- 
pletely the fop and the forager, the queenly pet and loyal 
subject, the author and the actor, the noble and the democrat, 
the soldier and the scholar, were, in the age of Elizabeth and 
James, blent in one man, and that man — Sir Walter Raleigh. - 

Do we not detect in this first adventurous and practical 
patron of North America, many of the seemingly discordant 
qualities which mingle so commonly in the versatile life of 
our own people ? If the calendar of courts had its saints, like 
the calendar of the church, well might Sir Walter have been 
canonized as protector of the broad realm for which the brutal 
James made him a martyr to the jealousy and fear of Spain.' 

'It is believed by historians that Sir Walter Raleigh fell a victim to the 
intrigues of Spain at the Court of James. Ilis American adventures and hardi- 
hood were dangerous to the Spanish Empire. A small pampldet entitled: A 
New Description of Virginia, published in London in 16 J9, a reprint of 
which is possessed by the Virginia Historical Society, shows how the jno- 



17 

Queen Elizabeth was the first British Sovereign who built 
up that maritime power of England which has converted her 
magnificent Island — dot as it is, in the waste of the sea — into 
the wharf of the world. She was no friend of the Spaniards, 
and she had men in her service who admired Spanish galeons. 
Wealth, realized in coin, and gold or silver, in bulk, were 
tempting merchandize in frail vessels, which sailors, half 
pirate, half privateer, might easily deliver of their burden. It 
was easier to rob than to mine ; and, while Spain performed 
the labor in the bowels of the earth, England took the profit 
as a prize on the sea! Such were some of the elements of 
maritime success, which weakened Spain by draining her 
colonial wealth, while it enriched her rival and injured the 
Catholic sovereign. 

Yet, in the ranks of these adventurers, there were men of 
honest purpose; and, among the first whose designs of colo- 
nization on this continent were unquestionably conceived in 
a spirit of discovery and speculation, was the half brother of 
Sir Walter Raleigh — Sir Humphrey Gilbert. But Sir Hum- 
phrey, while pursuing his northern adventures, was unluckily 
lost at sea, and Sir W^alter took up the thread where his rela- 
tive dropped it. I regret that I have not time to pursue this 
subject, and can only say that his enterprises were, doubtless, 



phetic fears of the Spaniard, even at that early time, conjured up the warning 
pliantom of Anglo-Saxon "annexation." 

♦'It is well known," says the pamphlet, "that our English plantations have 
" had little countenance ; nay, that our statesmen, (when time was,) had store 
" of Gundemore's gold," (meaning Gondoniar, Spanish Minister at James's 
" Court) — " to destroy and discountenance the plantation of Virginia ; and he 
" effected it, in great part, by dissolving the company, wherein most of the 
" nobility, gentry, corporate cities, and most merchants of England, were 
" interested and engaged; after the expense of some hundred of thousands of 
" pounds; for Gundemore did affirm to his friends, that he had commission from 
«' his master" — (the King of Spain,) — " to destroy that plantation. For, said 
" he, should they thrive and go on increasing, as they have done under that 
" popular Lord of Southampton, mij master''s West Indies, and his IVIexico, 
"would shortly be visited by sea and by land, from those Planters in Virginia." 

Generals Scott and Taylor — both sons of Virginia — have verified, in the 
nineteenth century, the foresight of the cautious statesman of the seventeenth. 

Sec Virginia His. Reg. Vol. I. p. 28. 



18 

the germ of that colonization, which, by degrees, has filled 
up and formed our Union. 

You will remember the striking difference between colo- 
nization from England, and the colonization from other nations 
of ancient and modern times. The short, imperfect navigation 
of the Greeks, along the shores and among the islands of their 
inland sea, made colonization rather a diffusive overflow, 
than an adventurous transplanting of their people. They 
were urged to this oozing emigration either by personal want, 
by the command of law^, or by the oracles of their gods, who 
doubtless spoke under the authority of law. Where the 
national religion was a unit in faith, there was no persecution 
to drive men off, nor had the spirit of adventure seized those 
primitive classics with the zeal of "annexation" that animated 
after ages. 

The Roman colonies were massive, military progresses of 
population, seeking to spread national power by conquest and 
permanent encampment. 

Portugal and Spain, mingled avarice and dominion in their 
conquests or occupation of new lands. 

The French Protestants were, to a great extent, prevented 
by the bigotry of their home government, as Avell as by foreign 
jealousy, from obtaining a sanctuary in America. France 
drove the refugees chiefly into other European countries, 
where they established their manufacturing industry ; and 
thus, fanaticism kept out of America laborious multitudes who 
would have pressed hard on the British settlements. In the 
islands, a small trade and the investment of money, rather 
than the desire to acquire fortune by personal industry, were 
the motives of the early and regular emigration of Frenchmen. 

The Dutch, devoted to trade, generally located themselves 
where they "have just room enough to manifest the miracles 
of frugality and diligence." i 

Thus, wherever we trace mankind abandoning its home, 
in ancient or modern days, we find a selfish motive, a 
superstitious command, a love of wealth, a lust of power, or 

' Dr. Miller's " History riiiiosupliicully lUustratcil," vol 1. p. 95. 



19 

a spirit of robbery, controlling the movement. The first 
adventurous effort towards the realization of actual settlement 
on this continent, was, as we have seen, made by the perse- 
cuted Huguenots, and was, probably, an attempt rather to fly 
from oppression, than to establish religious freedom. The 
first English settlement, also, was founded more upon specu- 
lation than on any novel or exalted principle. There was 
a quest of gold, a desire for land, and an honest hope of 
improving personal fortunes. 

Virginia had been a charter government, but, in 1624, 
it was merged in the Royal Government. The crown re- 
assumed the dominion it had granted to others. Virginia, 
in the first two decades of the seventeenth century, although 
exhibiting some prosperous phases, was nothing more than a 
delicate off-shoot from the British stock, somewhat vigorous 
for its change to virgin soil, but likely to bear the same fruit 
as its parent tree. Virginia was a limb timidly transplanted, — 
not a branch torn off, and flung to wither or to fertilize new 
realms by its decay. This continent, with all that a century 
and a half of maritime coasting had done for it, was but 
thinly sprinkled with settlements, which bore the same pro- 
portion to the vast continental wilderness that single ships 
or small squadrons bear to the illimitable sea. But the spirit 
of adventure, the desire for refuge, the dream of liberty, were 
soon to plant the seeds of a new civilization in the Western 
World. 

Henry VHI, Founder of the English Church, as he had, 
whilom, been, Defender of the Roman Faith, was no friend 
of toleration; but the rigor of his system was somewhat 
relaxed during the reign of the sixth Edward. Mary, 
daughter of Henry, and sister of Edward, re-constructed 
the great ancestral church, and the world is hardly divided 
in opinion as to the character of her reign. Elizabeth re- 
established the church that had been founded by her father; 
and her successor James I of England and VI of Scot- 
land, — the Protestant son of a Catholic mother, — while he 
openly adhered to the church of his realm, could not avoid 
4 



20 

some exhibitions of coquettish tenderness for the faith of his 
slaughtered parent. 

But, amid all these changes, there was one class upon 
which the wrath of the Church of England and of the Church 
of Rome, met in accordant severity; — this was the Puritan 
and ultra Puritan sect, — to which I have alluded at the com- 
mencement of this discourse, — whose lot was even more 
disastrous under the Protestant Elizabeth, than under tiie 
Catholic Mary. The remorseless courts of her commis- 
sioners, who inquisitorially tried these religionists by interro- 
gation on oath, imprisoned them, if they remained lawfully 
silent and condemned them if they honestly confessed! 

A conffrejration of these sectaries had existed for some 
time on the boundaries of Lincoln, Nottingham and York, 
under the guidance of Richard Clifton and John Robinson, 
the latter of whom was a modest, polished, and learned man, 
This christian fold was organized about 1602 ; but worried by 
ceaseless persecution, it fled to Holland, where its members, 
fearing they would be absorbed in the country that had enter- 
tained them so hospitably, resolved in 1620 to remove to that 
portion of the great American wilderness, known as North 
Virginia. Such, in the chronology of our Continent, was the 
first decisive emigration of our parent people to the New 
World, for the sake of opinion. 

It is neither my purpose, nor is it necessary, to sketch the 
subsequent history of this New England emigration, or of the 
followers, who swelled it into colonial significance. 

Its great characteristic, seems to me, to have been, an 
unalterable will to worship God according to its own secta- 
rian ideas, and to afford an equal right and protection to all 
who thought as it did, or were willing to conform to its des- 
potic and anchoritic austerity. It is not very clear, what 
were its notions of abstract political liberty; yet there can be 
very little doubt what its ])ractical opinions of equality must 
have been, when we remember the common dangers, duties, 
and interests of such a band of emigrants on the dreary, ice- 
bound, savage haunted, coasts of Massachusetts. 



21 

"When Adam delved, and Eve span, 
"Pray who was then the gentleman ?" 

may well be asked of a community which for so long a time, 
had been the guest of foreigners, and now saw the first great 
human and divine law of liberty and equality, taught by the 
compulsion of labor and mutual protection, on a strip of land 
between the sea and the forest. The colonists were literally 
reduced to first principles; they were stripped of the com- 
forts, pomps, ambitions, distinctions, of the Old World, and 
they embraced the common destiny of a hopeful future in 
the New.' They had been persecuted for their opinions, but 
that did not make them tolerant of the opinions of their per- 
secutors. It was better, then, that oppressor and oppressed 
should live apart in both hemispheres; and thus, in sincerity, 
if not in justice, their future history exhibits many bad exam- 
ples of the malign spirit from which they fled in Europe. If 
they were, essentially, Republicans, their democracy was lim- 
ited to a political and religious equality of Puritan secta- 
rianism ; — it had not ripened into the democracy of an all 
embracing Christianity. 2 

' "Men who have to count, miserly, the kernels of corn for their daily bread, 
" and to till their ground, staggering through weakness from the effect of famine, 
"can do but little in settling the jnetaphysics of faith, or in counting frames, 
"and guaging the exercises of their feelings. Grim necessity of hunger looks 
"morbid sensibility out of countenance." — Rev. Dr. G. B, Cheever's edition of 
Vie Journal of the Pilgrims ^—IS-IS : p. 112. 

' "The New England Puritans, though themselves refugees from religious 
"intolerance, and martyrs, as they supposed, to the cause of religious freedom, 
"practiced the same intolerance to those who were so unfortunate as to differ 
" from them. In 1635, Roger Williams was banished from the Massachusetts 
" colony for differences of religious opinions with the civil powers. Tiiis was 
" the next year after the arrival of the Maryland colony. In 1650, fifteen years 
" later, a Baptist received thirty lashes at the whipping post, in Boston, for his 
" peculiar faith ; and nine years later, tliree persons suffered death by the com- 
" mon hangman, in the same place, for their adherence to the sect of Quakers." — 
Rev. Dr. Burnap's Life of Leonard Culvert, in Sparks's Am. Biog. '2nd series, 
vol. IX. p. 170, Boston, 1S46. 

On the 13th Sept. 1644, these N. England Puritans, passed a law of banish- 
ment against Anabaptists ; in 1646, another law, imposing the same punish- 
ment, was passed against Heresy and Error; in 1647, the order of Jesuits came 
in for a share of intolerance; — its members were inhibited from entering the 
colony ; if they came in, heedless of the law, they were to be banished, and if 



22 

These occurrences took place durinjTihe reign of the prince 
who united the Scottish and English thrones. At the Court 
of James, and in his intimate service, during nearly the whole 
period of his sovereignty, was a distinguished personage, who, 
though his name does not figure grandly on the page of history, 
was deeply interested in the destiny of our continent. 

Sir George Calvert, was descended from a noble Flem- 
ish family, which emigrated and settled in the North of Eng- 
land, where, in 1582, the Founder of Maryland was born. 
After taking his Bachelor's degree at Oxford and travelling on 
the Continent, he became, at the age of twenty-five, private 
Secretary to Sir Robert Cecil, the Lord Treasurer — afterwards 
the celebrated Earl of Salisbury. In 1G09, he apjiears as 
one of the patentees named in the new Charter then granted 
to the Virginia Company. After the death of his ministerial 
patron, he was honored with knighthood and made clerk of 
the crown to the Privy Council. This brought him closely to 
the side of his sovereign. In 1619, he was appointed one of 
tlie Secretaries of State, and was then, also, elected to Parlia- 
ment; first for his native Yorkshire, and subsequently for Ox- 
ford. He continued in ofiSce, under James, as Secretary of 
State, until near that monarch's death, and resigned in 1624. 

Born in the Church of England, Sir George, had, in the 
course of his public career, become a Roman Catholic. With 
the period or the means of his conversion from the court-laith 
to an unpopular creed, we have, now no concern. Fuller? 
in his "Worthies of England," asserts that Calvert resign- 
ed in consequence of his change of religion ; — other writers, 
relying, perhaps, more on the obiter dicta of memoirs and his- 
tory, believe that his convictions as to failh had changed some 

tlipy rptiinied after lianislimont, tl:oy were to be put to death. On the 14th of 
October Kiofi, tlic ccleliratoil law was enacted ajjainst "the cursed sect of here- 
tics lately risen up in the world, which are coniinonly called Quakers :" — by its 
decrees, captains of vessels who introduced these religionists, knowinjjly, were 
to be fined or imprisoned ; " (piaker books or writings containing their devilish 
opinions," were not to be brought into the colony, under a penalty; while qua- 
kers who came in. were to be coniniitted to the house of correction, kept con- 
stantly at work, not allowed to speak, and severely whipped, on their entrance 
into this sanctuary I — See original Acts, Hazard's His. Coll. 1, pp. 538, 545, 
550, (V3(). 



23 

years before. Be that, however, as it may, the resignation, 
and its alleged cause which was well known to his loving 
master, James, produced no ill feeling in that sovereign. He 
retired in unpersecuted peace. He was even honored by the 
retention of his seat at the Privy Council ; — the King bestowed 
a pension for his faithful services; — regranted him, in fee sim- 
ple, lands which he previously held by another tenure ; and, 
finally, created him Lord Baron of Baltimore, in Ireland, i 

Whilst Sir George was in ollice, his attention, it seems, 
had been early directed towards America ; and in 1G20, he is 
still mentioned in a list of the members of the Virginia Com- 
pany. Soon after, he became concerned in the plantation of 
Newfoundland, and finally, obtained a patent for it, to him 
and his heirs, as Absolute Lord and Proprietary, with all the 
royalties of a Count Palatine. We must regret that the origi- 
nal, or a copy of this grant for the province of Avalon, in 
Newfoundland, has not been recently seen, or, if discover- 
ed, transmitted to this country. 

Here, Sir George built a house ; spent jG25,000 in improve- 
ments ; removed his family to grace the new Principality ; 
manned ships, at his own charge, to relieve and guard the 

' See Mr. John P. Kennedy's discourse on the life and character of Sir Georjje 
Calvert, and the reviews thereof, with Mr K's reply, on this question of reli- 
gion, in the U. S. Catholic Magazine, 1846. Since the publication of Mr. 
Kennedy's discourse and the reviews of it, in 1846, 1 have met with an English 
work published in London in 1839, attributed to Bisliop Goodman, entitled an 
•' Account of the Court of James the first." In vol. 1, p. 37(), he says : "The 
'* third man who was thought to gain by the Spanish match was Secretary Cal- 
" vert ; and as he was the only Secretary employed in the Spanish mutch, so un- 
" doubtedly he did what good offices he could tlierein, for religion's sake, being 
*' infinitely addicted to the Roman Catholic faith, having been converted thereto by 
" Coiml Gondemar and Count Arundel, whoae davghter Secretary Calvert's Son 
*' had married ; and, as it was said, the Secretary did usually catechise his own 
" children, so to ground them in his own religioii ; and in his best room having an 
" altar set up, with chalice, candlesticks, and all other ornaments, he brought all 
*' strangers thither, never concealing anything, as if his whole joy and comfort had 
•' been to make open profession of his religion." As the Prelate was a contempo- 
rary, this statement, founded, as it may be, on report, is of considerable impor- 
tance. Fuller, also, was a contemporary though thirty years younger than 
Calvert. The Spanish match, alluded to, was on the carpet as early as 1617, 
and was broken off in the beginning of 1624. It was probably during this 
period that Lord Arundel and the Spanish Minister influenced the mind of Sir 
George as to religion. 



24 

British fisheries from the attacks of the French ; but, at length, 
after a residence of some years, and an ungrateful return from 
the soil and climate, he abandoned his luckless enterprise. 

Yet, it was soil and climate alone that disheartened the 
Northern adventurer: — he had not turned his back on America. 
In 1629 he repaired to Virginia, in which he had been so 
long concerned, and was most ungraciously greeted by the 
Protestant royalists, with an offer of the Test-Oaths of Alle- 
giance and supremacy. Sir George, very properly refused 
the challenge, and departed with his followers from the inhos- 
pitable James River, where the bigotry of prelacy denied him 
a foothold within the fair region he had partly owned. 

But, before he returned to England, he remembered that 
Virginia was now a Royal Province and no longer the pro- 
perty of corporate speculation ; — he recollected that there 
were large portions of it still unoccupied by white men, and 
that there were bays and rivers, pouring, sea-like, to the 
ocean, of which grand reports had come to him when he was 
one of the committee of the Council for the affairs of the Plan- 
tations. Accordingly, when he left the James River, he 
steered his keel around the protecting peninsula of Old Point 
Comfort, and ascending the majestic Chesapeake, entered its 
tributary streams, and laid, in imagination, at least, the foun- 
dations of Maryland. 

His examination of the region being ended, Calvert went 
home to England, and in 1632, obtained the grant of Mary- 
land from Charles I, the son of his royal patron and friend. 
The charter, which is said to have been the composition 
of Sir George, did not, however, pass the seals until after 
the death of its author ; but was issued to his eldest son and 
heir, Cccilius, on the 20th of June, 1632. The life of Sir 
George had been one of uninterrupted personal and political 
success ; his family was large, united and happy ; if he did 
not inherit wealth, he, at least, contrived to secure it; and, 
although his conscience taught him to abandon the faith of 
his fathers, his avowal of the change had been the signal for 
princely favors instead of political persecution. 



25 

Here the historic connexion of the first Lord Baltimore 
with Maryland ends. The real work of Plantation was the 
task of Cecilius, the first actual Lord Proprietary, and of sy 
Leonard Calvert, his brother, to whom, in the following 
year, the heir of the family intrusted the original task of colo- 
nial settlement. If anything was done by Sir George, in 
furtherance of the rights, liberties, or interests of humanity, 
so far as the foundation of Maryland is concerned, it was un- 
questionably effected anterior to this period, for we have no 
authority to say, that after his death, his children were mere 
executors of previous designs, or, that what was then done, 
was not the result of their own provident liberality. I think 
there can be no question that the charter was the work of Sir 
George. That, at least, is his property ; and he must be 
responsible for its defects, as well as entitled to its glory, i 

I presume it is hardly necessary for me to say what manner 
of person the King was, whom Calvert had served so intimate- 
ly during nearly a whole reign. James is precisely the histo- 
rical prodigy, to which a reflective mind would suppose the 
horrors of his parentage naturally gave birth. In royal chro- 
nology he stands between two axes, — the one that cleft the 
ivory neck of his beautiful mother — the other that severed the 
irresolute but refined head of his son and heir. His father, 
doubtless, had been deeply concerned in the shocking murder 
of his mother's second husband. Cradled on the throne of 
Scotland ; educated for Kingship by strangers ; the ward of a 
regency ; the shuttle-cock of ambitious politicians ; the hope 
and tool of two kingdoms, — James lived during an age in 
which the struggle of opinion and interest, of prerogative and 

' Mr. Chalmers, in his Hist, of the Revolt of the Am. Col. B. 2 ch. 3, says 
that the charter of Maryland was a liicral copy from the prior patent of Avalon ; 
but of this we are unable to judge, as he neither cites his authority nor indi- 
cates the depository of the Avalon Charter. If the Maryland charter is an ex- 
act transcript of the Avalon document, it is interesting to know the fact, as Cal- 
vert may have been a Protestant, when the latter was issued. Bozman states 
an authority for its date, as of 162.'], wliich would indicate that this document 
may still probably be found in the British Museum. If it was issued in 1623, 
it was granted a year before. Fuller says, Calvert resigned because he had be- 
come a Catholic. In all likelihood, however. Sir George was not converted iu 
a day! — See Bozman Hist. Maryland cd. 1S37, vol. I j'. 240 el seq. in note. 



26 

privilege, of human right and royal power, of glimmering 
science and superstitious quackery, might well have bewil- 
dered an intellect, brighter and calmer than his. The English 
people, who were yet in the dawn of free o{)inions, but who, 
with the patience that has always characterized them, were 
willing to obey any symbol of order, — may be said, rather to 
have tolerated than honored his pedantry in learning, his king- 
craft in state, his petulance in authority, and his manifold 
absurdities, which, while they made him tyrannical, deprived 
him of the dignity that sometimes renders even a tyrant respec- 
table. 

You will readily believe that a man like George Calvert 
found it sometimes dithcult to serve such a sovereign, in inti- 
mate state relations. In private life he might not have se- 
lected him for a friend or a companion. But James was his 
King ; the impersonation of British Royalty and nationality. 
In serving him, he was but true to England ; and, even in 
that task, it, no doubt, often required the wdiole strength of his 
heart's loyalty, to withstand the follies of the royal buffoon- 
Calvert, I think, was not an enthusiast, but, emphatically, a 
man of his time. His time was not one of Reform, and he 
had no brave ambition to be a Reformer. Accustomed to the 
routine of an observing and technical official life, he was, 
essentially a practical man, and dealt, in politics, exclusively 
with the present. Endowed, probably, with but slender imagi- 
nation, he found little charm or flavor in excursive abstrac- 
tions. His maxim may periiaps have been — '■'■(juieta ne mo- 
veie," — the motto of moderate or cautions men who live in dis- 
turbed times, preceding or succeeding revolutions, and think 
it better — 

" to bear those ills \vc have 



" Than ily to others that we know not of!" 

Yet, wath all these characteristics, no one will hesitate to be- 
lieve that Calvert was a bold and resolute person, when it is 
recollected that he visited the wilderness of the New World 
in the seventeenth century, and projected therein the forma- 
tion of a British Province. 



27 

But, in truth, our materials for his biography are extremely 
scant. He died at the very moment when America's chief 
interest in him began. He belonged to the Court Party, as 
distinguished from the Country Party. He is known to have 
been a zealous supporter of the "supremacy of authority." He 
held, that "America, having been acquired by conquest, was 
subject, exclusively, to the control of royal prerogative." He 
was the defender of the Court in its diplomacy; and, ultra as 
James was in his monarchical doctrines, there can be little 
doubt that he would have dismissed Calvert from office, had 
there not been concord between the crown and its servant, as 
to the policy, if not the justice, of the toryism they both pro- 
fessed. But let us not judge that century by the standards of 
this. That would be writing history from a false point. Let 
us not condemn rulers who seem to be despotic in historic 
periods of transition — in periods of mutual intolerance and dis- 
trust — in periods when men know nothing, from practical 
experience, of the capacity of mankind for self government, i 

The charter which Sir George Calvert framed, and the suc- 
cessor of James granted, was precisely the one we might justly 

' The Baron Von Raumer, in his Hist, of the XVI and XVII Centuries, vol. 
2, p. 263, quoting from Tillieres, says of Calvert : "He is an honorable, sensible 
" well-minded man, courteous towards strangers, full of respect towards embas- 
" sadors, zealously intent on the welfare of England ; but by reason of all these 
" good qualities, entirely without consideration or influence." 

The only original work or tract by which we know the character of Sir 
George Calvert's mind is " The Answkr to Tom Tell-Troth, the Prac- 
tise OF Princes and the Lamentations of the Kirice, tvritten by Lord 
Balliinore, late Secretarij of Slate. London, printed 1642: — a copy of which, in 
MS., is in the collections of the Maryland Hist. Soc. This is a quaint speci- 
men of pedantic politics and toryism — larded with Latin quotations, and alto- 
gether redolent of James's Court. It was addressed to Charles I, and shows 
the author's intimate acquaintance with the political history and movements of 
the continental powers. We may judge Calvert's politics by the following pas- 
sage in which he commends the doctrines of his old master : — 

" King James," says he, " in his oration to the Parliament, 1620, used these 
"words very judiciallie; Kings and Kingdoms were before Parliaments; the 
"Parliament was never called lor the purpose to meddle witli complaints against 
*' the King, the Church, or State matters, but ad consultandum de rebus arduis, 
'■'■ Nox el Regnum nostrum concernanlibus ; as the writ will inform you. I was 
" never the cause, nor guiitie of the election of mysonne by the Bohemians, 
" neither would I be content that any other king should dispute whether I am 
" a lawful King or no, and to tosse crowns like Tennis-balls." 

5 



28 

suppose such a subject, and such a sovereign would pre- 
pare and sign. It invested the Lord Proprietary with all the 
royal rights, enjoyed by the Bishop of Durham, within the 
County Palatine of Durham. He was the source of justice. 
He was the fountain of honor, and allowed to decorate merito- 
rious provincials with whatever titles and dignities he should 
appoint. He had the power to establish feudalism and all its 
incidents. He was not merely the founder and filler of office, 
but he was also the sole executive. He might erect towns, 
boroughs and cities ; — he might pardon offences and command 
the forces. As ecclesiastical head of the Province, he had 
the right to found churches, and was entitled to their advow- 
sons.' In certain cases he had the dangerous privilege of 
issuing ordinances, which were to have the force of sovereign 
decrees. In fact, allegiance to England, was alone preserved, 
and the Lord Proprietary became an autocrat, with but two 
limitations : 1st, the laws were to be enacted by the Proprie- 
tary, with the advice and approbation of the free men, or free- 
holders or their deputies, — the ^'liberi homines,^^ and 'Hiberi 
tenentes,^^ spoken of in the charter ; — and 2nd, "no interpre- 
tation" of the charter was "to be made whereby God's Holy 
Rights and the true Christian Religion, or the allegiance due 
to us," (the King of England,) " our heirs and successors, 
may, in any wise, suffer by change, prejudice or diminution." 
Christianity and the King — I blush to unite such discordant 
names — were protected in equal co-partnership !* 

The first of these reserved privileges of the people, the 
Lord Proprietary Cecilius understood, to mean, that /j« had the 
exclusive privilege of proposing laws, and that the free-men, 
or free-holders of his province, could only accept or reject his 
propositions. These laws of the province were not to be sub- 

' It may seem strange, (liat, being a Catholic, he still had the right of advovv- 
son or of presentation to Protestant Episcopal Churches; but it was not until 
the Act of 1st William and Marj, chapter 26, thai Parliament interfered with 
the rigiit of Catholics to present to religious benefices. That Act vested the 
presentations belonging to Catholics in tiie Universities. An Act passed r2th 
Anne, was of a similar disabling character. — Butler's Hist. Mem. vol. 3, pp. 
136, 148, 149. 

* See Appendix No. 1, in regard to the erroneous translation of this clause 
from the Latin, that has hitherto been adopted from Bacon's laws of Maryland. 



29 

mitted to the King for his approval, nor had he the important 
right of taxation, which was expressly relinquished. In the 
early legislation of Maryland, this supposed exclusive right of 
proposing laws by the Proprietary, was soon tested by mutual 
rejections, both by the legislative Assembly and by Cecilius, 
of the Acts, which each had separately passed or prepared. 
But the other clause, touching " God's Holy Rights and 
the true Christian Religion," was one, in regard to the prac- 
tical interpretation of which, I apprehend, there was never a 
moment's doubt in the mind either of the people or of the Pro- 
prietary. It is a radiant gem in the antique setting of the char- 
ter. It is the glory of Calvert. It is the utter obliteration of 
prejudice among all who professed Christianity. Toleration 
was unknown in the old World ; but this was more than tole- 
ration, for it declared freedom at least to Christians, — yet it 
was not perfect freedom, for it excluded that patient and suf- 
fering race — that chosen people — who, to the disgrace even 
of republican Maryland, within my recollection, were bowed 
down by political disabilities. 

I am aware that many historians consider the religious free- 
dom of Maryland as originating in subsequent legislation, and 
claim the act of 1649 as the statute of toleration. I do not 
agree with them. Sir George Calvert had been a Protestant ; — 
he became a Catholic. As a Catholic, he came to Virginia, 
and in the colony where he sought to settle, he found himself 
assailed, for the first time in his life, by Protestant virulent e 
and incapacitation. He was now, himself, about to become 
a Lord Proprietor. The sovereign who granted his charter 
was a Protestant, and moreover, the king of a country whose 
established religion was Protestant. The Protestant monarch, 
of course, could not grant anything which would compro- 
mise him with his Protestant subjects ; yet the Catholic no- 
bleman, who was to take the beneficiary charter, could not 
receive, from his Protestant master, a grant which would assail 
the conscience of co-religionists over whom he was, in fact, to 
be a sovereign. In England, the King had no right to inter- 
fere with the Church of England ; but in America, which was 
a vacant, royal domain, his paramount authority permitted 



30 

him to abolish invidious ecclesiastical distinctions. Calvert, 
the Catholic, must have been less than a man, if he forgot his 
fellow sufferers and their disabilities when he drew his char- 
ter. His Protestant recollections taught him the vexations of 
Catholic trials, while his Catholic observation informed him 
sharply of Protestant persecution. Sectarianism was already 
rampant across the Atlantic* The two British lodgments, in 
Virginia and New England, were obstinately sectarian. Vir- 
ginia was Episcopalian ; New England was Puritan ; — should 
Maryland be founded as an exclusively Protestant province, 
or an exclusively Catholic settlement.'' It is evident that either 
would be impossible : — the latter, because it would have been 
both impolitic and probably illegal ; and the former because it 
would have been a ridiculous anomaly to force a converted 
Catholic, to govern a colony wherein his own creed was not 
tolerated by a fundamental and unalterable law. It is impos- 
sible to conceive that the faith of Calvert and the legal reli- 
gion of Charles, did not enter into their deliberations, when 
they discussed the Charter; and, doubtless, both subject and 
sovereign justly decided to make "The Land of Mary," 
which the Protestant Charles baptised in honor of his Catho- 
lic Queen, a free soil for Christianity. It was Calvert's duty 
and interest to make Charles tolerant of Catholic Christianity ; 
nor could he deny to others the immunity he demanded for 
himself and his religious brethren. The language of the 
charter, therefore, seems explicit and incapable of any other 
meaning. There were multitudes of Catholics in England, 
who would be glad to take refuge in a region where they were 
to be free from disabilities, and could assert their manhood. 

' As an illustrntion ofthis feeling, I will quote a passage showing how it fared 
with Marj landers in Massachusetts in 1634. "The Dove," one of the vessels 
of (he first colonists to Maryland, was dispatched to Massachusetts with a 
cargoof corn to exchange for fish. She carried a friendly letter from Calvert 
and another from Harvey, but the magistrates were suspicious of a jieople who 
"did set up mass openly.'" Some of the crew were accused of reviling the in- 
habitants of Massachusetts as " holy brethren," " the members," &c., and just 
as the ship was about to sail ; the mpercargo, liappcnins: on shore, was arrested in 
order to compel the master to give np the culprits. The proof jailed, and the 
vessel was sulfered to dejiart, but not without a special charge to the master 
"to bring no more such disordered persons!" — Ilildnth Hist. U. S., vol. 1, 209. 



31 

The king, moreover, secured for his Catholic subjects a quiet, 
but chartered banishment, which still preserved their allegi- 
ance. At the court there was much leaning towards the 
church of Rome. It was rather fashionable to believe one 
way, and conform another. The Queen was zealous in her 
ancestral faith ; and her influence over the king, colored more 
than one of his acts. Had Calvert gone to the market place, 
and openly proclaimed, that a Protestant king, by a just char- 
ter of neutrality, had established an American sanctuary for 
Catholics, and invited them thither under the banner of the 
cross, one of his chief objects, must have been at once defeat- 
ed ; for intolerance would have rallied its parties against the 
project, and the dream of benevolence would have been de- 
stroyed for ever. If by the term, "God's Holy Rights and the 
true Christian religion," the charter meant, the church of Eng- 
land, then, ex vi termini, Catholicity could never have been 
tolerated in Maryland ; and yet it is unquestionable that the 
original settlement was made under Catholic auspices — bless- 
ed by Cathohc clergymen — and acquiesced in by Protestant 
followers. Was it not wise, therefore, to shield conscience in 
Maryland, under the indefinite but unsectarian phraseology of 
" God's Holy Rights and the true Christian Religion ?'" 

So far, then, for the basis of the charter, and for the action 
of Sir George Calvert. After his death, the planting of the 
colony took place under the administration of Cecilius, who, 
remaining in Europe, dispatched his brother Leonard to 
America to carry out his projects. 

If the personal history of the Calverts is scant, the history 
of the early days of Maryland is scarcely less so ; but the in- 
dustry of antiquarians, and the researches of a learned Catho- 
lic clergyman, have brought to light two documents which dis- 
close much of the religious and business character of the set- 
tlement. The work entitled : — "A Relation of Maryland," 
which was published in London in 1635, and gave the first 
account of the planting of the province, is a minute, mercan- 
tile, statistical, geographical and descriptive narrative of the 

' See Appendix No. 2. 



32 

landing and locating of the adventurers who set sail in 1633, 
and of their genial intercourse with the aborigines. If I had 
time, it would be j)leasing to sum up the facts of this historical 
treasure, which w-as evidently prepared under the direction of 
Cecilius, Lord Baltimore, if not actually written by him. 
It is full of the spirit of careful, honest enterprise ; and ex- 
hibits, I think, conclusively, the fact that the design of Cal- 
vert, in establishing this colony, was mainly the creation of a 
great estate, manorial and agricultural, whose ample revenues 
should, at all times, supply the needs of his ten children and 
their descendants. 

The other document to which I refer, is a manuscript dis- 
covered some years ago, by the Rev. Mr. McSherry, in the 
archives of the college of the Propaganda, at Rome, and ex- 
hibits the zeal with which the worthy Jesuits, whom Lord 
Baltimore sent forth with the first settlers, applied themselves 
to the christianization of the savages. It presents some beau- 
tiful pictures of the simple life of these devotees. It shows 
that, in Maryland, the first step was not made in crime ; and 
that the earliest duty of the Governor, was not only to concili- 
ate the Indian proprietors, but to purchase the land they were 
willing to resign. Nor was this all ; there was provident 
care for the soul as well as the soil of the savage. There is 
something rare in the watchful forethought which looks not 
only to the present gain or future prospects of our fellow men, 
which takes heed not only of the personal rights and material 
comforts of the race it is displacing, but guards the untutor- 
ed savage, and consigns him to the vigilance of instructed 
piety. This "Narrative of Father White," and the 
Jesuits' letters, preserved in the college at Georgetown, por- 
tray the zeal with which the missionaries, in their frail barks, 
thridded the rivers, coves and inlets of our Chesapeake and 
Patapsco ; — how they raised the cross, under the shadow of 
which the first landing was effected ; — how they set up their 
altars in the wigwams of the Indians, and sought, by simplicity, 
kindness and reason, to reach and save the Indian. In Mary- 
land, persecution was dead at the founding ; — prejudice, even, 
was forbidden. The cruelties of Spanish planting were un- 



33 

known in our milder clime. No violence was used, to con- 
vert or to appropriate, and thus, the symbol of salvation, was 
properly raised on the green Isle of St. Clement, as an emblem 
of the peace and good will, which the Proprietary desired 
should sanctify his enterprise. ' 

' In order to illustrate the spirit in which the region for the first settlement at 
St. Mary's was acquired, I will quote from a MS. copy of "A Relation of Mary- 
land, 1635," now in my possession : "To make his entrie peaceable and safe, 
he thought fit to present ye Werowance and Wisoes of the town (so they call 
ye chief men of accompt among them,) with some English cloth (such as is 
used in trade with ye Indians,) axes, hoes, and knives, which they accepted 
verie kindlie, and freely gave consent toe his companie that hee and they should 
dwell in one part of their towne, and reserved the other for themselves : and 
those Indians that dwelt in that part of ye towne which was allotted for ye 
English, freely left them their houses and some corne that they had begun to 
plant : It was also agreed between them that at ye end of ye Harvest they 
should have ye whole Towne, which they did accordinglie. And they made 
mutiiall promises to each other to live peaceably and friendlie together, and if 
any injury should happen to be done, on any part, that satisfaction should be 
made for ye same ; and thus, on ye 27 Daie of March, A. D. 1634, ye Gou- 
ernour took possession of ye place, and named ye Toivne — Saint Martens. 

"There was an occasion that much facilitated their treatie with these Indians 
which was this : the Susquehanocks (a warlike people that inhabit between 
Chesapeake Bay and Delaware Bay) did usual lie make warres and incursions 
upon ye neighboring Indians, partly for superioritie, partly for to gett their 
women, and what other purchase they could meet with ; which the Indians of 
Yoacomaco fearing, had, ye yeere before our arivall there, made a resolution, 
for there safetie, to remove themselves higher into ye countrie, where it was 
more populous, and many of them where gone there when ye English arrived." 

At Potomac, Father Altham, — according to Father White's Latin MS. in 
the Maryland Hist. Soc. Col. — informed the guardian of the King that "we (the 
clergy ) had not come thither for war, but for the sake of benevolence, — that we 
might imbue a rude race with the principles of civilization, and open a way to 
Heaven, as well as to impart to them the advantages enjoyed by distant regions. 
The prince signified that we had come acceptably. The interpreter was one 
of the Virginia Protestants. When the Father, for lack of time, could not con- 
tinue his discourse, and promised soon to return : "I will that it should be so," 
said Archihau — "our table shall be one; my men shall hunt for you; all 
things shall be in common between us." 

The Werowance of Pautuxent visited the strangers, and when he was about 
departing, used the following language, as recorded in the MS. Relation of 
Maryland of 1635 : "I love ye English so well that if they should goe about to 
" kill me, if I had so much breath as to speak, I would command ye people not 
" to revenge my death ; for I know they would not doe such a thinge except 
" it was through mine own default." See also Mr. B. U. Campbell's admira- 
ble Sketch of the early missions to Maryland, read before the Md. 
Hist. Soc. 8th Jan. 1816, and subsequently printed in the U. S. Catholic 
Magazine. 



34 

I think there can be no doubt that this adventure had the 
double object of affording an exile's refuge to Calvert's co- 
religionists, as well as of promoting the welfare of his family. 
It was designed for land-holders and laborers. It was a 
manorial, planting colony. Its territory was watered by two 
bays, several large rivers, and innumerable streams. Its fer- 
tile lands and thick forests, invited husbandmen, while its 
capacious coasts tempted the hardy fisherman. And so it is, 
that in the Arms which were prepared for the Proprietary go- 
vernment, the baronial shield of the Calvert family, dropjied, 
in America, its two supporting leopards, and received in 
their stead, on either side, a Fisherman and a Farmer. 
"Crescite et Multiplicamini," — its motto, — was a watchword 
of provident thrift. 

Forty-nine years after the charter was granted to Lord 
Baltimore, King Charles II issued a patent, for a magnifi- 
cent patrimony in America, to William Pi:nn. 

But what a change, in that half century, had passed over 
the world ! A catalogue of the events that took place, in 
Great Britain alone, is a history of the growth of Opinion and 
of the People. 

Charles's efforts to overthrow the Presbyterian Church in 
Scotland, and to enforce Episcopacy, brought on the war 
with the stern enthusiasts of that country. Laud, in the 
Church, and the Earl of Strafford, in the Cabinet, kept the 
King in a constant passion of royal and ecclesiastical power. 
Strafford fell, and the civil war broke out. Cromwell towered 
up suddenly, on the bloody field, and was victorious over the 
royalists. The King perished on the scaffold. Cromwell 
became Lord Protector. Anon, the commonwealth fell ; the 
Stuarts were restored, and Charles II ascended the throne ; — 
but amid all these perilous acts of political and religious fury, 
the world of thought had been stirred by the speeches and 
writings, of Taylor, Algernon Sydney, Hampden, and Milton. 
As the people gradually felt their power they learned to know 
tiuir rights, and, although they went back from Republi- 
canism to Royalty, they did so, perhaps, only to save them- 



35 

selves from the anarchy that ever threatens a nation while 
freeing itself from feudal traditions. 

Besides these political and literary phases of the time, there 
had been added to the Catholic, Episcopal, and Puritan sects, 
a new element of religious power, which was destined to 
produce a slow but safe revolution among men. 

An humble shoemaker, named George Fox, arose and 
taught that " every man was complete in himself; he stood in 
need of no alien help ; the light was free of all control, — above 
all authority external to itself. Each human being, man or 
woman, was supreme." The christian denomination called 
Quakers, or more descriptively — "Friends," — thus obtained 
a hearing and a standing among all serious persons who 
thought Religion a thing of life as well as of death. 

Quakerism, wilh such fundamental principles of equality 
in constant practice, became a social polity. If the Quaker 
was a Democrat, he was so because the " inner light" of 
his Christianity made him one, and he dared not disobey 
his Christianity. He recognized no superiors, for his con- 
science taught him to deny any privileges to claimed supe- 
riority. But the Quaker added to his system, an element 
which, hitherto, was unknown in the history of sects ; — he was 
a Man of Peace. It is not to be supposed that any royal or 
ecclesiastical government would allow such radical doctrines 
to pass unnoticed, in the midst of a society which was ever 
greedy for new teachings. The Quaker, therefore, soon par- 
ticipated in the persecutions wdiich prelacy thought due to 
liberal Christianity. But persecution of the Friend, was the 
Friend's best publication, for he answered persecution, not by 
recantation, but by peaceful endurance. Combative resistance, 
in religious differences, always gives the victor a right, or at 
least, an excuse, to slay. But Quakerism, a system of personal 
and religious independence and peace, — became slowly suc- 
cessful by the vis inertice of passive resistance. All other 
sects were, more or less, combative ; — Quakerism was an 
obstinate rock, which stood, in rooted firmness, amid a sea of 
strife : — the billows of faction raged around it and broke on 
its granite surface, but they wasted themselves — not the rock ! 
6 



36 

And this is a most important flict in the history of Religion 
in its development of society. All other sects lost caste, 
power or material, either by aggression or by fighting. But 
the Quaker said to the Prelate, the Puritan, and the Catholic, 
you may annoy us by public trials, by denial of justice, by 
misrepresentation, by imprisonment, by persecution, by the 
stake, — yet we shall stand immovable on two principles, 
which deny that God is glorified by warfare — especially for 
opinion. Our principles are, equality and peace — in the 
church and in the world. Equality is to make us humble 
and good citizens. Peace is to convert this den of human 
tigers into a fold, wherein by simply performing our duties to 
each other and to God, we may prepare ourselves for the 
world of spirits. You can persecute — we can suffer. Who 
shall tire first? We will be victorious by the firmness that 
bears your persecutions ; and those very persecutions, while 
they publish your shame, shall proclaim our principles as well 
as our endurance. They knew, from the history of Charles 
1st, that the worst thing to be done with a bad king was to 
kill him ; for, if the axe metamorphosed that personage into 
a martyr, the prison could never extinguish the light of 
truth in the doctrines of Quakerism ! ^ 

You will pardon me, gentlemen, for having detained you so 
long in discussing the foundation of Maryland. The planting 
of your own state is familiar to you. It has been thoroughly 
treated in the writings of your Proud, Watson, Gordon, 
Du Ponceau, Tyson, Fisher, Wharton, Reed, Ingraham, Arm- 
strong and many others. Can it be necessary tor me to say 
a word, in Philadelphia, of the history of William Penn ; — 
of him, who, as a lawgiver and executive magistrate, — a 
practical, pious, Quaker, — -Jirst developed in state affairs, and 
reduced to practice, the liberty and equality enjoined by his 

' In William Penn's second replj- to a committee of the House of Lords ap- 
pointed in 1678, he declares that those who cannot comply with laws, through 
tenderness of conscience, sliould not "revile or conspire against the govcrn- 
" ment, but icith christian humilili/ and patience tire out all mistakes against vs, 
" and wait their better inforuiation, who, we believe, do as undeservedly as 
" severely treat us." 



37 

religion and founded on liberal Christianity ; — of him who 
first taught mankind the sublime truth, that — 

" Beneath the rule of men entirely great 

*' The Penis mightier Ihan the sword? Behold 

" The arch-enchanter's wand, — itself a nothing ! 

" But taking sorcery from the master hand 

" To paralyse the Cesars ! Take aicay the sivord, 

" States can be saved without it!" 

It would be idle to detail the facts of his life or government, 
for, not only have Pennsylvanians recorded and dwelt upon 
them until they are household lessons, but they have been 
favorite themes for French, British, Italian, German and 
Spanish philosophers and historians. 

It was Penn to whom the charter of 1681 was granted, 
half a century after the patent issued to Cecilius Calvert. 
The instrument itself, has many of the features of the Mary- 
land grant ; but it is well known that the absolute powers it 
bestowed on the Proprietary, were only taken by liim in order 
that he might do as he pleased in the formation of a new 
state, whose principles of freedom and peace, might, first in 
the World's history, practically assume a national aspect. 

I shall not recount the democratic liberalities of his system, 
as it was matured by his personal efforts and advice. Origi- 
nal, as he unquestionably was, in genius ; bold as he was in 
resisting the pomp of the world, at a time when its vanities 
sink easiest and most corruptingly into the heart, — we may 
nevertheless, say, that the deeds and history of his time, as 
well as of the previous fifty years, had a large share in 
moulding his character. 

In William Penn, the crude germs of religious originality, 
which, in Fox, were struggling, and sometimes almost stifling 
for utterance, found their first, ablest, and most accomplished 
expounder. He gave them refinement and respectability. 
His intimacy with Algernon Sidney taught him the value of 
introducing those principles into the doctrines of govern- 
ment ; — and thus, he soon learned that when political rights 
grow into the sanctity of religious duties, they receive thereby 



38 

Q vitality which makes them irresistible. Penn, in this wise, 
became an expanded embodiment of Fox and Sidney ; and, 
appropriating their mingled faith and polity, discarded every 
thing that was doctrinal and not practical, and realized, in 
government, their united wisdom. Nobly m his age, did he 
declare : "I know what is said by the several admirers of 
" monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy, which are the rule 
" of one, of a few, and of the many, and are the three common 
" ideas of government when men discourse on that subject. 
" But I choose to solve the controversy with this small distinc- 
*' tion, and it belongs to all three : — any government is free to 
«' t]ie people under it, whatever he the frame, where the laios 
" 7'ide and the jicople are a party to those laws ; and more than 
" this is tyranny, oligarchy, and confusion^^ 

In these historical illustrations, I have striven to show that 
Primitive Christianity was the basis of equal rights and re- 
sponsibilities. The alleged defence of this Christianity, in the 
land of its birth, gave rise to " holy w'ars," in w'hich Feudal- 
ism and Chivalry originated. Feudalism was the source of 
the strictest military dependence, as well as of manifold social 
perversions. The knight expanded into a lord, — the subject 
commoner dwindled to a soldier or a serf. Thus Feudalism 
and a great historical Church, grew up in aristocratic copart- 
nership over the bodies and souls of mankind, until the one, 
by the omnipotence of its spiritual authority, ripened into an 
universal hierarchy, while the other, by the folly of its "divine 
rifht," decayed into a temporal despotism that fell at the first 
blow of the heads-man's axe. The reformation and revolution 
broke the enchanter's wand ; and, when the cloud passed 
from tlie bloody stage, instead of seeing before us a magician 
full of the glories of his art and almost deceived himself, by 
the splendor of his incantations, we beheld a meagre and 
pitiful creature, who though blind and palsied, still retained 
for a while, the power of witch-like mischief. But his reign 
was not lasting. The stern Puritan, — the pioneer of Inde- 
pendence, — advanced with his remorseless weapon, — while 
(piielly, in his shadow, followed the calm and patient Friend, 

' rrofucc to Frame ol'Ciovernmont, 25 April, 16S2, 



39 

sowintj the seed of Peace and Good- Will in the furrows 
plowed by the steel of his unrelenting predecessor. And 
thus again, after ages of corrupt and desolating perversion, 
the selfish heart of man came humbly back to its original faith 
that Liberal Christianity is the true basis of enlightened free- 
dom, and the only foundation of good and lasting government. 

The bleak winds of March were blowing in Maryland, 
when Calvert conciliated and purchased from the Indians at 
Saint Mary's ; but Autumn was 

" Laying here and there 
•' Aiiery finger on the leaves," 

when Penn, also, established a perfect friendship with the 
savages at Shackamaxon.^ 

Calvert, a protestant officer of the crown, became a cath- 
olic, and, retiring to private life, was rewarded by his king, 
with a pension, estates, and an American principality ; — ■ 
Penn, the son of a British Admiral, and who is only accurately 
known to us by a portrait which represents him in armor, be- 
gan life as an adherent of the Church of England, and having 
conscientiously, doffed the steel for the simple garb of Quaker- 
ism, was persecuted, not only by his government but his 
parent. Calvert took the grant of a feudal charter, and 
asserting all its legislative and baronial powers, sought to fas- 
ten its Chinese influence, in feudal fixedness, on his colo- 
nists ; — but Penn, knowing that feudalism was an absurdity, 
in the necessary equality of a wilderness, embraced his great 
authority in order "to leave himself and his successors no 
power of doing mischief, so that the will of one man might 
not hinder the good of a whole community."^ 

' Those who desire to know the precise character of the celebrated Elm-tree 
Treaty, should read the Memoir on its history, in vol. 3, part 2, p. 145 of the 
Memoirs of the Pennsylvania Hist. Soc, written by the late Mr. Du Ponceau, 
and Mr. Joshua Francis Fisher. It is one of the finest specimen of minute, 
exhaustive, historical analysis, with which I am acquainted. These gentle<- 
men, prove, I think, conclusively, that the Treaty was altogether one of amity 
and friendship, and was entirely unconnected with the purchase of lands. 

^ Jaaaey'sLife of Penn, 163. 



40 

Calvert seems to have thought of English or Irish emigra- 
tion alone ; — Pcnn, did not confine liimsclf to race, but 
sought for support from the Continent as well as from Britain. ' 
Calvert was ennobled for his services ; — Penn rejected a 
birthright which might have raised him to the peerage. 

Calvert's public life was antecedent to his American visit — 
Penn's was almost entirely subsequent to the inception of his 
"holy experiment." 

Calvert laid the foundations of a mimic kingdom ; — Penn, 
with the power of a prince, stripped himself of authority. 
The one was naturally an aristocrat of James's time ; the 
other, quite as naturally, a democrat of the transition age of 
Sidney. 

Calvert imagined that mankind stood still ; but, Penn be- 
lieved, that mankind ever moves, or, that like an army under 
arms, when not marching, it is marking time. 

While to Calvert is due the honor of a considerable religious 
advance on his age, as developed in his charter, — Penn is to 
be revered for the double glory of civil and perfect religious 
liberty. Calvert mitigated man's lot by toleration ; — Penn 
expanded the germ of toleration into unconditional freedom. 
Calvert was the founder of a Planting Province, mainly 
agricultural, and creative of all the manorial dependencies ; — 
but Penn seems to have heartily cherished the idea of a great 
City, and of the commerce it was to gather and develope 
from a wilderness over which it was to stand as guardian 
sentinel. As farming was the chief interest of the one, trad- 
ing, became, also, a favorite of the other ; and thus, while 
the transient trader visited, supplied, and left the native 
Indian free, — the permanent planter settled forever on his 
" hunting grounds," and drove him farther into the forest. 
Calvert recognized the law of war ; — Penn made peace a 
fundamental institution. They both ft-lt that civilized nations 
have a double and concurrent life, — material and spiritual ; — 
but Calvert sought rather to develop one, while Penn ad- 
dressed himself to the care of both. 

' Sec 2nd Bozman Hist. Md. p. 616— note XLIII, Conditions, 8tc. 



41 

Calvert's idea was to open a new land by old doctrines, 
and to form his preserving amber around a worthless fly ; — 
but Penn's Pennsylvania was to crystalize around the novel 
and lucid nucleus of freedom. 

Calvert supposed that America was to be a mere reflex of 
Britain, and that the heart of his native Island would pul- 
sate here ; but Penn, seeing that the future population of 
America, like the soil of the Mississippi Valley, would be an 
alluvial deposit from the overflow of European civilization, 
thought it right to plant a new doctrine of human rights, 
which would grow more vigorously for its transplanting and 
culture. 

The germs of Civil and Religious freedom may be found 
elsewhere in the foundation of American provinces and colo- 
nies. I know they are claimed for the cabin of the May- 
flower, the rock of Plymouth, and the sands of Rhode Island. 
But I think that William Penn is justly entitled to the honor 
of adopting them on principle, after long and patient reflection, 
as the seed of his people, and thus, of having taken from their 
introduction by him into this country, all the disparagement 
of originating either in discontent or accident. His plan was 
the offspring of beautiful design, and not the gypsey child of 
chance or circumstance. 

History is to man what water is to the landscape, — it mir- 
rors, but distorts in its reflection, and the great founder of 
Pennsylvania has suffered from this temporary distortion. 
But, at length, the water will become still, and the image will 
be perfect. Penn is one of those majestic figures that loom 
up on the waste of time, in the same eternal permanence and 
simple grandeur in which the Pyramids rise in relief from the 
sands of Egypt Let no Arab displace a single stone ! 



APPENDIX No. I 



It is singular that the clause in the XXII section of Charles Ist's charter to 
Lord Bultiinoie, relating to the interpretation of that instrument in regard to 
religion, has never been accurately translated, but that all commentators have, 
hitherto, followed the version given by Bacon. I shall endeavor to demon- 
strate the error. 

The following parallel passages exhibit the original Latin, and Bacon's 
adopted translation : 



ORIGINAL LATIN. 

The 22nd section of the charter of 
Maryland, copied from Bacon's Laws, 
wherein it was adopted from an attest- 
ed copy from the original record re- 
maining in the Chapel of Rolls in 1758: 

" Section xxii. Et si forte impos- 
terum contingat Dubitationes aliquas 
qUcTstiones circa verum sensum et In- 
tellectum alicujus verbi clausula; vel 
sententiae in hue presenti Charta 
nostra contentae generari Eam semper 
et in omnibus Interpretationem adhi- 
beri et in quibuscunque Curiis et Pne- 
toriis nostris obtinere Volumus pra>,- 
cipimus et mandamus quae prafato mo- 
do Baroni de Baltimore Ha&redibus 
et Assignatis suis benignior utilior et 
favorabilior esse judicabitur Proviso 
semper quod nulla fiat Interpretatio per 
quam sacro-sancta Dei et vera Chris- 
tiana lleligio aut Ligeantia Nobis 
Hceredibus et successoribus nostris de- 
bita Immutatione Prejudicio vel dis- 
pendio in aliquo patiantur :" ik,c. &,c. 



ENGLISH translation. 

Translation of the 22nd section of the 
charter, from Bacon's Laws of Mary- 
land, wherein it is copied from an old 
translation published by order of the 
Lower House in the year 1725: 

"Section xxii. And if, peradven- 
ture, hereafter it may happen that any 
doubts or questions should arise con- 
cerning the true sense and meaning of 
any word, clause or sentence con- 
tained in this our present charter, we 
will, charge, and command. That In- 
terpretation to be applied, always, and 
in all things, and in all our Courts and 
Judicatories whatsoever, to obtain 
which shall be judged to be more ben- 
eficial, profitable and favorable to the 
aforesaid now Baron of Baltimore, 
his heirs and assigns : Provided always 
that no interpretation thereof be made 
whereby God's holy and true christian 
religion, or the allegiance due to us, 
our heirs and successors, may, in any 
wise, suffer by change, prejudice or 
diminution :" &c. &.c. 



It will be noticed that this Laliii copy, according to the well known ancient 
usage in such papers, is not punctuated, so that we have no guidance, for the 
purpose of translation, from that source. 
7 



44 

The translation of this section as far as the words: "Proviso semper quod 
■nulla fiat inlerpretatio," he. is sufficiently correct; but the whole of the final 
clause, should in my opinion, be rendered thus : — 

" Provided always that no interpretation thereof be made, whereby God's 
" holy rights and the true christian religion, or the allegiance due to 
" us our heirs or successors, may, in any wise suffer by change, prejudice or 
♦'diminution." Let me offer my reasons for this alteration: 

1st, This new translation harmonizes with the evident grammatical con- 
struction of the Latin sentence, and is the easiest as well as most natural. 
The common version, given by Bacon: God's holy and true Christian 
religion," — is grossly pleonastic, if not nonsensical. Among christians, "God's 
religion," can of course, only be the "christian religion ;" and, with equal 
certainty, it is not only a " true" religion, but a " holy" one ! 

2nd, The word Sacrosandus, always conveys the idea of a consecrated inviola- 
bility, in consequence of inherent rights and privileges. In a dictionary, contempo- 
rary with the charter, I find the following definition, — in verba sacrosanctus. 

" Sacrosanctus : Apud Ciceronem dicebatur id quod interposito jure- 
jurando sanctum, et institutum erat idem etiam significat ac sanctus, saiilo, 
Tribunus plebis dicebatur sacrosanctus, quia eum nefas erat attingere, longe 
diviniori ratione Catholici appellamus ecclesium Ronianam sacrosaiictam. Calpi- 
nus Parvus ; — seu Dictionarium Ca'saris Calderini Mirani : Venetiis, 1618. 

Cicero, in Caiil: 2. 8. — uses the phrase — "Possessiones sacrosancta>," in this 
sense; and so does Livy in the epithet, — " Sacrosancta potestas," as applied to 
the Tribuneship ; and, in the sentence, — ut plebi sui magistratus essent sacro- 
sancta;." 

J"'rom the last sentence, in the definition given in the Venetian Dictionary of 
1618, which I have cited in italics, it will be seen that the epithet had a pecu- 
liarly Catholic signification in its appropriation by the Roman Church. 

3d, I contend that " sacrosancta''' does not qualify " religio," but agrees with 
negotia, or some word of similar import, understood ; and thus the phrase — 
*' sacrosancta Dei" — forms a distinct branch of tlie sentence. 

If the translation given in Bacon is the true one, the positions of tlie words 
" sacrosancta" and " Dei" should he reversed, for their present collocation clearly 
violates accurate Latin construction. In that case, " Dei" being subject to the 
government of "rcligio," ought to precede" suo'osancta," which would be ap- 
purtenant to " rcligio," while "et," which would then couple the two adjectives 
instead of the two members of the sentence, should be placed immediately be- 
tween them, without the interposition of any word to disunite it either from 
" sacrosancta" or "vera." If my translation be correct, then the collocation of 
all tlie words in the original Latin of the charter, is proper. If " sacrosancta" 
is a neuter adjective agreeing with " negotia," understood, — and " ct" conjoins 
members of sentences, then the whole clause is obedient to a positive law of 
Latin verbal arrangement. Leverett says : " The genitive is elegantly put bc- 
Ibrc the noun which governs it with one or more words between ; ctcipt when 
the genitive is governed by a neuter udjective, in wliich case, it must be placed 
after it." 

-1th, Again : — if" d" joi?is "sacrosancta" and "vera," which, thereby, qualify 
the same noun, there are then only two nominatives in the Latin sentence of 
tlie charter, vk : "rcligio" and " Ugcantia." JVow these nouus, being coupled 



45 

by the disjunctive conjunction " a;;/," must have the verb agreeing with them 
separately in the singular. But, as "patiantur" happens to be in the phiral, the 
author of the charter must either have been ignorant of one of the simplest 
grammar rules, or have designed to convey the meaning I contend for. 

I must acknowledge the aid and confirmation I have received, in examining 
this matter, from the very competent scholarship of my friend Mr. Knott, 
assistant Librarian of the Maryland Historical Society. 



APPENDIX No. II. 

The scope of my discourse is confined to the illustration of principles either 
announced, or acted on, in the founding of Maryland and Pennsylvania. I 
have contended that Sir George Calvert, the firsl Lord Baltimore, so framed 
the charter which was granted by Charles I, that, without express concessions, 
the general character of its language in regard to religious rights, would secure 
liberty of conscience to christians. 

1 : 1632. — Language can scarcely be more perspicuously comprehensive, 
than in the phrase : " God's Holy Rights and the true Christian Religion." 
Under such a clause, in the charter, no particular church could set up a claim 
for its exclusive Christianity. There was no mention, in the instrument, of 
" the Established Church," or, of " the Church of England." The Catholic 
could not deny the Episcojialian's Christianity ; the Episcopalian could not 
deny the Catholic's, nor could the Puritan question the Christianity of either. 
All professed faith in Christ. Each of the three great sects might contend that 
its form of worship, or interpretation of the Bible, was the correct one; but 
all came lawfully under the great generic class of christians. And, while the 
political government of the colonists was to be conducted by a Catholic magis- 
trate, in a province belonging to a Catholic Lord, — the interpretation of the law 
of religious rights was to be made, not by the laws of England, but exclusively 
under the paramount law of the provincial cliarter. By that document the 
broad " rights of God," and " the true christian religion," could not " suli'er by 
change, prejudice or diminution." 

This view is strengthened by a clause in the 4th section of the charter, by 
which the king granted Lord B."the patronages andadvowsons of all churches 
which, icith the increasing luorship and Religion of Christ, {crescenti Chrisli 
cultu et religione,'''') should be built witiiin his province. The right of at/i-oi/j- 
son, being thus bestowed on the Lord Projirietaiy, for all Christian Churches ; 
his majesty, then, goes on, empowering Lord B. to erect and found churches, 
chapels, &,c. and to cause them to be dedicated " according to the Ecclesiastical 
laws of our kingdom of England.'" The general right of advowson, and the par- 
ticular privilege, conceded to a Catholic, of causing the consecration of E])isco- 
pal churches, are separate powers and ought not to be confounded by a hasty 
reader of the charter. 

I think there can hardly be a fair doubt that the interpretation I give to the 
22ud clause is the one assigned to it by the immigrants from the earliest colonial 



46 

movement in 1633. We may assert, therefore, the fact, that rclipoug freetlom 
was offered and secured for christians, in the province of Maryland, from tlie 
very bei^inning. 

II : 1()33 — We must recollect that under the English statutes, adherents of 
the national cJmrch re(juircd no protection ; they were free in the exercise of their 
faith; but Catholics and Puritans were not so happily situated, and, accord- 
ingly, they sought, in the new world an exeni]ition i'roni the disabilities and 
persecutions they experienced at home. Can it be credited, that, under such 
vexations, the Catholic Lord Baltimore would have drawn a charter, or, his 
Catholic son and successor, sent forth a colony, under a Catholic Governor, 
when the fundamental law, under which alone he exercised his power, did not 
secure liberty to him and his co-rcligionists? It is simply necessary to ask the 
question, in order to demonstrate the absurdity of such a supposition. 

Ill : lfi34. — If we show, then, that Catholic conscience was untrammeled in 
Maryland, I think we may fairly assume the general ground as satisfactorily 
proved. What was, briefly, the first movement of this sect, under the Lord 
Proprietary's auspices ? When Lord Cwcilius was planning his colonial expe- 
dition in lfi33, one of his earliest cares was to apply to the Order of Jesus for 
clergymen to attend the Catholic planters and settlers, and to convert tlie na- 
tives. Accordingly, under the sanction of the Superior, Father White joined 
the emigrants, alifiovgh,vnder previous persecutions in England, he had been 
sent into perpetual banishment, to return from which subjected the culprit to the 
penalty of death! These facts are set forth, at page 14 of the 2nd volume of 
Challoner's Memoirs. Historia Anglo-Bavara, S. J. Rev. Dr. Oliver's collec- 
tions illustrative of the Scotch, English and Irish Jesuits, page 222, and in 
the essay on the Early Maryland Missions, by IMr. B. U. Campbell. Fathers 
Andrew White and John Altham, and two lay brothers, named John Knowlcs 
and Thomas Gervase, accompanied the first expedition, and were active agents 
in consecrating the possession of the soil, and converting Protestant immigrants 
as well as heathen natives. The colony, therefore, cannot properly be called a 
Protestant one, when its onlij spiritual guides were Catholics ; and consequently 
if it was more of a Catholic than a Protestant emigration, it must, by legal 
necessity, have been free from the moment it quitted the shores of England. 
If the Catholic was free, all were free. 

IV : 1()37. — Our next authority, in regard to the early interpretation of reli- 
gious rights in Maryland, is found in a passage in Chalmers's Political Annals, 
page 235. "In the oath," says he, "taken by the Governor and Council, 
tr/H'cen the years lfi37 and 1657, there was the following clause, which ought 
to be administered to the rulers of every country. 'I will not, by myself or any 
other, directly or indirectly, trouble, molest or discounlenance, any person pro- 
fessing to believe in Jesus Christ, for or on account of his religion.' " This 
shows, that "belief in Jesus Christ," under the constitutional guaranty of the 
charter, anterior to the enactment of any colonial law by the JMaryland Assem- 
bly, secured sects from persecution. The language of the oatli, which was 
doubtless promulgated by the Lord Proprietor, is as broad as the language of 
tiie charier. The statement of Chalmers has been held to be indefinite as to 
whether the oath was taken from lfi37 to lfi57, or, whether it was taken in 
some years betrreen those dates ; but, if the historian did not mean to say that 
it had been administered /frs< in 1637, and continued afterwards, why would he 
not have specified any other, as tlic beginning year, as well as 1637 ' The 



47 

objection seems rather hypercrilical tlian plausible. Chalmers was too accu- 
rate a writer to use dates so loosely, and inasmuch as he was an old Maryland 
lawyer and custodian of the Maryland provincial papers, he had the best oppor- 
tunity to designate the precise date. A Govei'nor's oath was a regular and 
necessary otlicial act. No one can doubt that an oath was required of that 
personage in Maryland ; and tlie oath in question, is precisely such an one as 
Protestant settlers, in tliat age, might naturally expect from a Catholic Magis- 
trate, who, (even from motives of the humblest policy,) would be willing to 
grant to others what he was anxious to secure for himself. If ever there was 
a proper time Ibr perfect toleration, it was at this moment, when a Catholic 
became, for the fir si time in hislonj, a sovereign prince of the first province o[ 
the British Empire ! 

Mr. Ciialmers could not have confounded the oath whose language he cites, 
with other oaths which the reader will find cited in the 2nd volume of Boz- 
man's History of Maryland, at pages 141, 608, 642. The oath prejjared for 
Stone in 1648, appears to have been an augmented edition of the one quoted 
by Chalmers, and is so different in parts of its phraseology as well as items, 
that it cannot have been mistaken by the learned annalist. Bancroft, 
McMahon, Tyson, C. F. Mayer and B. U. Campbell, adopt his statement as 
true. 

V : 1638. — In regard to the early practice of Marylarid tribunals, on the sub- 
ject of tolerance, we have a striking case in 1638. In that year a certain 
Catholic, named William Lewis, was arraigned before the Governor, Secretary. 
&,c., tor abusive language to Protestants. Lewis confessed, that, coming into a 
room where Francis Gray and Robert Sedgrave, servants of Captain Cornwa- 
leys, were reading, he heard them recite passages so that he should liear them, 
that were reproachful to his religion, "viz: that the Pope was anti-Christ, 
" and the Jesuits anti-Ciiristian Ministers, &c: he told them it was a falsehood 
" and came from the devil, and that he that writ it was an instrument of the 
♦' devil, and so he would approve it !" The court found the culprit " guilty of 
«' a very offensive speech in calling the Protestant ministers, the ministers of 
" the devil," and of " exceeding his rights, in forbidding them to read a lawful 
"book." In consequence of this "offensive language," and other " unrea- 
" sonable disputations, in point of religion, tending to the disturbance of the 
" peace and quiet of the Colony, committed by him, against a j'libiic procla- 
" mation set forth to prohibit all such disputes,'' Lewis was fined and remanded 
into custody until he gave security for future good behaviour.^ 

Thus, four years, only, after the settlement, the liberty of conscience was 
vindicated by a recorded judicial sentence, and " unreasonable disputations in 
point of religion," rebuked by a Catholic Governor in the person of a Catholic 
offender. There could scarcely be a clearer evidence of impartial and tolerant 
sincerity. The decision, moreover, is confirmatory of the fact that the Gover- 
nor had taken such an oath as Chalmers cites, in the previous year, 1637; espe- 
cially as there had already been a '■'■proclamation to prohibit disputes.'" 

VI : 1638. — At the first efficient General Assembly of the Colony, which 
was held in this year, only two Acts were passed, though thirty-six other bills 
were twice read and engrossed, but not finally ripened into laws. The second 

' 2d Doznian, 597, and Orig. MS. in Md. His. Soc. 



48 

of tlic two ads that wore passed, contains a section asserting that " Holy 
Ciuirch, irithi?! this jirovincr, sliall have ail her ri<^lits and liberties ;" thus se- 
curinj; the rights of Catholics; — while the first of the thirty-six incomplete 
acts was one, which we know only by iille, as "An act for Church liberties.'" 
It was to continue in force until the end of the next General Assembly, and 
then, with the Lord Proprietary's consent, to be perpetual. Although we 
have no means of knowing the extent of the proposed " Church liberties," we 
may suppose thattlie proposed enactment was general, in regard to all Christian 
sects besides the Catholics. 

VII : 1640. —At the session of 1P40, an act for " Church Yibcrixes" was passed 
on the 23d October, and confirmed, as a perpetual law, in the first year of the 
accession of Charles Calvert, Sd Lord Baltimore, in 1676. This Act also 
declares that " Holy Church, within this province, shall have and enjoy all 
her rights, liberties and franchises, wholly and without blemish." Thus, in 
1640, legislation had already settled opinion as to the rights of Catholics and 
Protestants. Instead of the early Catholics seeking to contract the freedom of 
other sects, their chief aim and interest seem to have been to secure their own. 
I consider the Acts I have cited rather as mere declaratory statutes, than as 
necessary original laws. 

VIII : 1649. — In this year, an assembly, believed to have been composed of 
a Protestant majority, passed the act which has been lauded as the source of 
religious toleration. It is " An Act concerning Religion," and, in my judg- 
ment, is less tolerant than the Cliarter or the Governor's Oath, inasmuch as it 
included Unitarians in the same category with blasphemers and those who 
denied our Saviour Jesus Christ, punishing all alike, WMth confiscation of 
goods and the pains of death. This was the epoch of the trial and execution 
of Charles I, and of the establishment of the Commonwealth. 

IX: 16.)4. The celebrated act I have just noticed, however, was passed 
fifteen years after the original settlement, which exceeds the period comprised 
in the actual founding of Maryland. Besides this, the political and religious 
aspect of England was changing, and the influence of the home-quarrel was 
beginning to be felt across the Atlantic. In 1654, during the mastery of 
Cromwell, religious freedom was destroyed: Puritanism became paramount; 
Papacy and I^relacy were d(>nounced by law ; and freedom was assured only 
to Puritans, and such as professed " faith in God by Jesus Christ, though dif- 
" fering in judgment, from the doctrine or worship publicly held forth." 

X. It has been alleged that the clause in the Maryland Charter securing 
" God's holy rights and the true Christian religion," is only an incorporation 
into Lord Baltimore's instrument, of certain clauses contained in the early 
Charters of Virginia. II' the reader will refer to the 1st volume of Henning's 
Statutes at large, he will find all those documents in English, but unaccompa- 
nied by the original Latin. Thus, we have no means of judging the accuracy 
of the translation, or identity of language in the JNLiryland and Virginia instru- 
ments. Adopting, however, for the present, the translation given by Hcnning, 
we find no coincidence of phraseology either to justify the susjiicion of a mere 
copy, or to subject our charter to the limitations contained in the Virginia 
patents. Disabilities are to be construed strictly in law, and our charter is not 
to be interpreted by another, but stands on its own, indej)cndent, context and 
manifest signification. 



49 

The first Virginia Charter or Patent was issued to Sir Thomas Gates and 
others, April 10th, 1606, in the 4th year of James's English reign. Among 
the " Articles, Orders, Instructions," &c., set down for Virginia, 20th Nov., 
1606,— (though nothing is said about restrictions in religion, while the pream- 
ble commends the noble work of propagating the Christian religion among 
infidel savages,)— is the following clause: — " And we doe specallie ordaine, 
charge, and require the presidents and councills," (of the two Colonies of 
Virginia,) "respectively, within their severall limits and precincts, that they 
with all diligence, care and respect, doe provide, that the true word and service 
of God and Christian faith, be preached, planted and used, not only within 
every of the said severall colonies and plantations, but alsoe, as much as they 
may, among the salvage people which doe or shall adjoine unto them, or border 
upon them, according to the doctrine, rights, and religion, now professed 
and established xuilhin our realme of England.'" — 1st Henning, 69. 

The second charter or patent, dated 23d May, 1609, 7th " James 1," was 
issued to the Treasurer and Company for Virginia, and in its XXIX section, 
declares: "And lastly, because the principal effect, which we can desire or 
expect of this action, is the conversion and reduction of the people in those 
parts unto the Worship of God and Christian religion, in which respect we should 
be loath,that any person be permitted to pass, that we suspected to affect the super- 
stitions of the Church of Eome ; we do hereby declare that it is our will and 
pleasure that none be permitted to pass in any voyage, from time to time, to 
be made unto the said country, but such as shall first have taken the Oath of 
Supremacy; Stc, &,c. — Ist Henning, 97. 

The third Charter of James the I, in the 9th year of his English reign, was 
issued 12th March, 1611-12 to the Treasurer and Company for Virginia. The 
Xllth section empowers certain officers to administer the Oath of Supremacy 
and Allegiance, to " all and every persons which shall at any time or times 
" hereafter go or pass to said Colony of Virginia." 

The Instructions to Governor Wyatt, of 24th of July, 1621, direct him : — 
«* to keep up the Meligion of the Church of England, as near as may be," Stc, 
&c. — Isl Henning. 

All these extracts, it will be observed, contain limitations and restrictions, 
either explicitly in favor of the English Church, or against the, so called, " su- 
perstitions of the Church of Rome." The Maryland Charter shows no such 
narrow clauses, and consequently, is justly free from any connexion, in inter- 
pretation, with the Virginia instruments. Besides this, we do not know that 
the language of the original Latin of the Virginia Charters, is the same as ours, 
and, therefore, it would be " reasoning in a circle," or, " begging the question," 
if we translated the Maryland Charter into the exact language of the Virginian. 
The phraseology — " God's holy rights and the true Christian religion," — 
unlimited in the Maryland Patent, — was a distinct assertion of broad equality 
to all professing to believe in Jesus Christ. It was not subject to any sectarian 
restriction, and formed the basis of religious liberty in Maryland, until it was 
undermined during the Puritan intolerance in 1654. 



^^0 



CORRESPONDENCE 



Hall of the IIistoeical 
P 



:al Society of Pennsylvania,^ 
HiLADELPHiAj April 12</t, lSu2. J 



Dear Sir ; 

We liave been appointed a committee to communicate to 
you the following resolution passed at a meeting of the Historical Society held 
this evening : ' 

" Resolvkd, That tlie thanks of the Historical Society, are hereby 
returned to Mr. Brantz Maykr, of Baltimore, for his very able and elo- 
quent address, delivered before it, on Thursday evening, the 8th instant ; and 
that Messrs. Tyson, Fisher, Coates and Ar.mstrong, be appointed a 
committee to transmit this resolution to Mr. Mayer, and request a copy of the 
address for publication." 

Permit us to express the pleasure we derived from the deliverj' of your Dis- 
course, and, also, the hope that you will comply with the Society's request. 
We remain, with great respect, your obedient servants, 

JOB K. TYSON, 
J. FUANCIS FISHER, 
B. II. COATES, 
EDW. ARMSTRONG. 
To Mil. CIIANTZ MAYER, Baltimore. 



Baltimore, \alh Jpril, 1852. 

Gentlemen : 

I am nuich obliged to the Pennsylvania Historical 
Society, for the complimentary resolution it was pleased to pass in relation to 
the Discourse 1 delivered belbre it on the Sth of this month. In compliance 
with your request, I place a copy of the address at your disposal; and, while 
thanking you for the courtesy with which you have communicated the vote of 
your colleagues, I have the honor to be, your most obedient servant, 

BRANTZ MAYER. 
To Messieurs JOB R. TYSON, 1 

... I-UANCIS .-ISIIER, ca,n„ultcc, 5.c. &c. i.c. 

B. II. C'OATI.S, 
EUVV. ARMSTKONt;, 
















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